Laughing out loud, or lol is probably one of the most popular texted words. We all use it either to end a sentence or to simply just to sound nice. There’s no doubt that the way we text has affected the way we write, it has become such a norm that we unconsciously do it, good thing we have spell check right? But the meaning of “lol” has changed over the years, the way the majority of people use it today, wouldn’t signify amusement the way it it before. For example, you text someone “where are you?” and they text back “studying at the library lol”, how funny is that, really? That is “lol” doesn’t necessarily mean anything but it does something like convey an attitude, of all things its grammar. Of course when we text we never think of use proper grammar but if you really think about “lol” has become a period or a comma.
Like the experts say all languages evolve over time, in the modern technology world we live in do you think “lol” is going to stand or are we going to eventually discard it and another word will take it’s place.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/30/opinion/mcwhorter-lol/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_topstories+(RSS%3A+Top+Stories)
lol
If lol is acceptable this is a second response. I agree that lol what become universal. It represents the insecurities that many of us have with social interaction. Just as we do not like to confront people nor do we like unexpected social contact what we hate even more is people not liking us. There is a reason why facebook doesn’t have a dislike button, although, i really wish there was, we are terrified that others will not like us. I’m not sure where I am going with this but basically we are insecure and it seems like we feel the need to emphasize a joking tone to be safe that others will not think its negative. We also do not like texting very long messages even though we spend hours simply looking at our phones without any actions.
I know some people that actually say lol in conversation and I can’t believe that it was able to jump from the screen into daily conversation. I used to think it would eventually go away but now I’m not so sure anymore. Who knows where the internet will take us and what will happen to language online or offline in that future.